Pom-poms in action






                                                                                 

Italian skier Roland Clara competing in the 30 km Skiathlon at Sochi Winter Olympic Games, 2014 / George Lazenby as James Bond killing some henchmen in Switzerland in 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', 1969.

Great blue ski suits, even better pom-poms.

A lighthouse on a grey day



It was the only day which was overcast that we cycled out to Fårö's lighthouse. The road winds through a rather dense forest of tall pines, creating a closeness with the tall trees and the low sky, I think I forgot at some points that I was on my way to see a building which beckons travellers from the vast expanses of the open sea.

We stopped off en route by Fårö's only supermarket, purchasing a carton of milk from Gotland,  a couple of smoked flounder from the smokehouse nextdoor and a selection of freshly baked rolls from the nearby bakery for a small picnic on the beach.

Next to the smokehouse was a small flea market and book stall, in a rundown wooden shed with a dirt floor - piles of unsorted books piled on trestle tables, listing bookshelves and mildew afflicted cardboard banana boxes. I surprisingly found an english copy of Goldfinger amongst the mess, for 5kr.

The lighthouse was surrounded by a low wall and a small outcrop of buildings. One can't go up to the light house as the area inside the wall is private property. The greyness of the sky and sea was reflected in the lighthouse structure itself, as well as the grey rocks below it, but it wasn't that gloomy, depressive grey that low clouds usually bring. The entire scene and atmosphere suited the weather much more so, than the swimming pool blue coloured skies of the days prior.

After lunching we lay in the sand dunes, using our jerseys and cardigans as makeshift pillows, as adventurers are wont to do (or so I like to think), and dozed lightly. After a while I wandered down to the shoreline, and discovered a dead seal. Some sea creature had eaten it's eyes. I didn't take a photo of it.




  

Sea Legs
































































The RMS Queen Elizabeth on fire and as a shipwreck in Hong Kong Harbour, 1972.  While being converted into a University cruise ship (a rather amazing idea), the world's largest passenger ship mysteriously caught fire as her refurbishments neared completion.  So much water was poured into her, in a vain attempt to combat the blaze the ship eventually capsized from the weight, and lay wrecked in Hong Kong Harbour for many months, until eventually being partially scrapped to be used as landfill for Hong Kong Airport. Parts such as the keel and boilers still lie on on the seabed, and are still marked on local maps as 'Foul', an unsafe area to anchor a boat.


The wreck of the RMS Queen Elizabeh made for one of the more interesting film locations and sets when used as a covert MI6 headquarters in the 1974 Bond film 'The Man with the Golden Gun'. To accommodate for the capsized liner's continuous lean, the Secret Service apparently constructed new floors, ramps, staircases and bookshelves, making for excellent clashing wallpaper patterns, bizarrely distorted corridors,and staircases upon staircases.







Dens of Inequity



images via

Spreads from Benjamin Critton's project, EVIL PEOPLE in MODERNIST HOMES in POPULAR FILMS. A publication printed in a pleasing red/yellow colour combinations, and includes quotes, diagrams, film stills, essays and more, delving into the relationship between architecture and cinema, and the association between ill-morals, vices and evil masterminds with modernist homes, traced through films along the lines of Diamonds Are Forever, The Big Lebowski, Blade Runner, L.A Confidential and Twilight amongst others.

Ideas like these interest me - I think about my embroidery floor plans of fictional settings from film, television and literiture connected by also their dual locations - existing in some manner in the 'real world' while only wholly residing in the imagination. The cliches 'picking up the common thread', and 'that nothing is ever a coincidence' are phrases oft repeat in the many murder mystery stories and screen adaptations I digest and that act as a sort of back bone to my practice.

I recently posted some photos of rock stars in their parents' houses and I was struck by how Frank Zappa and David Crosby were attired to seem in sync with their surroundings, while their 'modern dress', long tresses and full facial hair were at odds with the more conventional clothes of their parents. The photo essay was intended to highlight the different lifestyles and ideas between the different generations I believe, and this sort of contradictory outcome of matching someone to a surrounding meant to represent 'old' is intriguing.

I think about characters and their personalities reflected in their environs, and I can understand the cold, shiny surfaces, the hard right angles and the looming rooftop overhangs that cast ominous shadows mirroring the mentalities of the people who live in them. The character must embody their abodes and vice-versa. The brutalist nature of the buildings is apparent in the architecture, scale and materials. Grand concrete cubes with misleading panels of glass maybe not so that one can see in the house, but that whoever is inside can see them coming.
The 'evil people' of these popular films could perhaps be described as cold, clinical, calculating, corrupt, conniving, controlling and cruel, while also being charming, charismatic, clever and compelling. (I have run out of apt adjectives beginning with 'C' now), and possibly the same could be said about their dwellings.

I suppose this is why Ernst Blofeld only wears grey.


on a side-note, check out Critton's CV. As someone who is trying to wrangle a job out of Sweden (who is not being particularly forthcoming about it) I have taken a particular interest in other people's curriculum vitaes at present.